A Frontier Mystery

“Hallo Glanton! That you? Row? Only that when I tell this cheeky silly idiot to do anything he stands and grins and doesn’t do it. So I went for him.”

The tailing off of the remark was not quite suitable for publication, so I omit it.

“That all he did?” I said, rather shortly, for I was out of patience with this young fool.

“All? Isn’t that enough? Damn his cheek! What business has he to grin at me?”

“Well you wouldn’t have had him scowl, would you?”

“I’d have hammered him to pulp if he had.”

“Just so. You may as well give up all idea of farming here at this rate, Sewin, if you intend to keep on on that tack. The fellow didn’t do it, because in all probability he hadn’t the ghost of a notion what you were telling him to do. Here. I’ll put it to him.”

I did so. It was even as I had expected. The boy didn’t understand a word of English, and young Sewin couldn’t speak a word of Zulu – or at any rate a sentence. I talked to him, but it was not much use. He would leave, he declared. He was not going to stand being punched. If he had had an assegai or a stick perhaps the other would not have had things all his own way, he added meaningly.

In secret I sympathised with him, but did not choose to say so. What I did say was:

“And you would spend some years – in chains – mending the roads and quarrying stones for the Government? That would be a poor sort of satisfaction, would it not?”

“Au! I am not a dog,” he answered sullenly. “Tyingoza is my chief. But if the Government says I am to stand being beaten I shall cross Umzinyati this very night, and go and konza to Cetywayo. Now, this very night.”

I advised him to do nothing in a hurry, because anything done in a hurry was sure to be badly done. I even talked him over to the extent of making him promise that he would not leave at all, at any rate until he had some fresh grievance – which I hoped to be able to ensure against.

“Come on in, Glanton,” sung out young Sewin, impatiently. “Or are you going to spend the whole evening jawing with that infernal young sweep. I suppose you’re taking his part.”

This was pretty rough considering the pains I had been at to smooth the way for these people in the teeth of their own pig-headed obstinacy. But I was not going to quarrel with this cub.

“On the contrary,” I said, “I was taking yours, in that I persuaded the boy not to clear out, as he was on the point of doing.”

“Did you? Well then, Glanton, you won’t mind my saying that it’s a pity you did. D’you think we’re going to keep any blasted nigger here as a favour on his part?”

“Answer me this,” I said. “Are you prepared to herd your own sheep —slaag them, too – milk your own cows, and, in short, do every darn thing there is to be done on the farm yourselves?”

“Of course not. But I don’t see your point. The country is just swarming with niggers. If we kick one off the place, we can easily get another. Just as good fish in the sea, eh?”

“Are there? This colony contains about four hundred thousand natives – rather more than less – and if you go on as you’re doing, Sewin, you’ll mighty soon find that not one of those four hundred thousand will stay on your place for love or money. Not only that, but those around here’ll start in to make things most unpleasantly lively for you. They’ll slaag your sheep and steal your cattle – and you’ll find it too hot altogether to stay. Now you take my advice and go on a new tack altogether.”

“Mr Glanton’s quite right, Falkner,” said a clear voice from the verandah above us – for we had reached the house now, only in the earnestness of our discussion we had not noticed the presence of anybody. “He has told us the same thing before, and I hope he will go on doing so until it makes some impression.”

“Oh, as to that, Miss Sewin,” I said, idiotically deprecatory, as the Major’s eldest daughter came forward to welcome me, “I am only trying to make my experience of service to you.”

“I don’t know what we should have done without it,” she answered, in that sweet and gracious way of hers that always made me feel more or less a fool. In outward aspect she was rather tall, with an exceeding gracefulness of carriage. Her face, if it lacked colour perhaps, was very regular and refined; and would light up in the sweetest possible of smiles. She had grey eyes, large and well-lashed, and her abundant hair was arranged in some wonderful manner, which, while free from plaits and coils, always looked far more becoming than any amount of dressing by a fashionable hairdresser could have rendered it. But there you are. What do I, a prosaic trader in the Zulu, for all my experience of border and up-country matters, know about such things? So you must take my plain impressions as I give them.

It seemed to me that Falkner Sewin’s face had taken on an unpleasant, not to say scowling expression, at his cousin’s remarks, and he had turned away to hide it. He was a personable young fellow enough, tall and well set-up, and muscular; handsome too, with a square, determined chin. He had been a few years in the Army, where he had much better have remained, for he seemed to have qualified for civil life by a superlative arrogance, and an overweening sense of his own importance; both doubtless valuable to the accompaniment of jingling spurs and the clank of scabbards, but worse than useless for farming purposes on the Natal border. Towards myself he had begun by adopting a patronising attitude, which, however, he had soon dropped.

The house was a single storied one, surrounded on three sides by a verandah. A large and newly made garden reached round two sides of it, and away, at the further end of this, I could see the residue of the family, occupied with watering-pots, and other implements of the kind. It was a bright and pleasant spot was this garden, and its colour and sweet odours always conveyed a soothing effect, to my mind, at any rate; for little time or inclination had I for the cultivation of mere flowers. A patch or two of mealies or amabele, in a roughly schoffeled-up “land” was about the extent of any “gardening” I allowed myself; wherefore this amazing blend of colour and scent appealed to me all the more.

“Take that chair, Mr Glanton,” Miss Sewin went on, pointing to a large cane chair on the verandah. “You must have had a hot ride. Falkner, you might see that Mr Glanton’s horse is looked after. Call one of the boys and have him taken round and fed. The others are somewhere down in the garden, Mr Glanton. You know, my father is just wild on getting up a garden here. It occupies his time nearly the whole day long.”

“And very well he has done with it hitherto, Miss Sewin,” I answered heartily. “It is a pleasure to see it. You know, we rough knockabouts haven’t much time for that sort of thing. But we appreciate it, or its results, all the more when we see them.”

“But don’t you ever feel inclined to make things bright and pretty about your place?” she went on. “I should have thought you could have managed to find an hour or two a day. Or are you always so very busy up there?”

I felt guilty, as I remembered how I was prevented, not by lack of time but inclination: my spare time being occupied mainly by taking it easy, and smoking pipes and chatting with any chance natives who happened along; or it might be, sneaking about in the thick bushy kloofs to get a shot at a buck. But I answered, somewhat lamely:

“Oh, as to that, it isn’t exactly a matter of time. The fact is, Miss Sewin, we get into certain habits of life, and can’t get out of them in a hurry. I suppose a knockabout like myself gets all the taste for the fine arts knocked out of him. And the art of laying out gardens is one of the fine arts.”

She looked at me, I thought, with something of interest in her wide eyes. Then she said:

“Ah, but, you knockabouts – your own word remember, Mr Glanton – ” she interjected, with a smile, “are, or ought to be, among the most useful men a country like this can produce. You are constantly in touch with the savages by whom we are surrounded. You know their ways and their thoughts and all about them, and your knowledge cannot but be invaluable to your fellow-countrymen.”

I felt pleased. She had a way of what I will call for want of a better expression – smoothing you down the right way. I said:

“But these savages, Miss Sewin. Believe me, they are not half bad fellows at bottom if you take them the right way. You haven’t got to go very far down to find them so, either.”

“And we take them the wrong way, isn’t that what you mean?” she answered, with another of her somewhat disturbing smiles. “I believe you are quite right – in fact I know you are – and I am always saying so. But, here are the others. I hope you will keep on telling them the same thing, over and over again until they see it themselves, if it isn’t too late.”

“I will. But you? You yourself. Don’t you find this rough country and rough life a sadly different thing to what you had expected?” I said.

“Not ‘sadly’ different. On the contrary, it is full of interest. To begin with, these same savages interest me immensely. I should like to learn their language. Is it easy?”

“To tell the truth I don’t know whether it is or not. I didn’t learn it, myself. I sort of absorbed it. But I can tell you it makes all the difference in the world if you can talk with them and understand them or not. If you can I can’t imagine any people more easy to get on with.”

“Then I will begin to learn it at once. You will help me, won’t you, Mr Glanton?”

Great Heavens! What was this? I began to see all over the world, as if my head was screwed on all ways at once. Would I help her? Oh, wouldn’t I! Here was a bond of union set up between us – one that would afford me ample pretext for riding over here very often: that would bring us together often and constantly. It seemed as if a new and very bright world had opened in front of me – and yet and yet – what an utter fool I was – I, Godfrey Glanton, prosaic knockabout trader in the Zulu, and not a particularly young one at that!

Chapter Four.

My Neighbour’s Household

“Ha, Glanton! Glad to see you!” cried the Major, shaking me heartily by the hand. “Why, I was beginning to wonder when we should see you again. Was afraid you had started again on some up-country trip, and by Jove, there are one or two things I want your opinion about. We’ll talk of them bye and bye.”

“All right, Major. Only too glad to be of use.”

He was a fine specimen of the best type of old soldier – tall, straight, handsome, hearty and straightforward in manner – in short a gentleman every inch of him. I had a great liking for him, and for his own sake alone would have gone far towards smoothing his difficulties and straightening things out for him no matter how crooked they might be, thanks to his own wrongheadedness. His wife was a good counterpart of him – without his wrongheadedness – and quite free from the fads and fussiness apparently inseparable from most elderly ladies, which render their presence and company a matter for resigned toleration rather than any sort of pleasure or advantage. To such Mrs Sewin was a rare and remarkable exception. The youngest daughter, Edith, was outwardly a complete contrast to her stately sister, being shorter, and plump and fair-haired, but very pretty – and sunny-natured to a degree. In fact I believe that to most men she would have proved the more attractive of the two.

“Have a glass of grog, Glanton, after your ride,” said the Major. “Well, and how’s trade?”

“So so. Much as usual. I’m thinking of a couple of months’ trip to the north of Zululand soon. I might pick up some good cattle in Hamu’s and Majendwa’s part, and Zulu oxen always find a good sale.”

“Into Zululand?” repeated Falkner, who had just entered. “By Jove, Glanton, I’d like to go with you. Wouldn’t I just.”

I hope I didn’t show that I wouldn’t like anything of the sort. I may have, for I was never a good actor, except in dealing with savages.

“That wouldn’t be impossible,” I answered. “But what about the farm?”

I read “Hang the farm!” as plain as possible in his face, though he hadn’t said it. What he did say was:

“Oh well. We might think out some plan so as to work it.”

“You must have had some very exciting adventures among the savages in your time, Mr Glanton,” said Mrs Sewin.

“The liveliest adventures I have ever had were among white men, and not among savages at all,” I answered. “But there, you must excuse me filling the rôle of the up-country yarner.”

“Mr Glanton is most provokingly and proverbially impossible to ‘draw,’ you know, mother,” said Miss Sewin, with a laugh and a shake of the head.

“That’s more than most fellows in his line are,” guffawed Falkner, in a way that was rather unpleasant, and, I thought, intentionally so, as he helped himself to a glass of grog.

“Come and have a look round the garden, Glanton,” said the Major. “We sha’n’t get dinner for nearly an hour, and it’ll help fill up the time. You girls coming?”

“Aïda, you go,” said the youngest. “Mother and I will see about getting dinner ready.”

Dusk was already beginning to fall, and there isn’t much dusk in that latitude. The scents of evening were in the air, the myriad distilling perfumes from the surrounding bush no less fragrant to my nostrils than those of the sweet-scented flowers which represented the Major’s favourite hobby; but this, you may be sure, I did not tell him. But to me it was an enchanted hour and an enchanted scene, as I furtively watched the tall graceful figure at my side, noting each changing attitude, from the poise of the well-set-on head to the delicate tapering fingers put forth to handle, or here and there pluck some blossom. The while I was listening to the old man’s enthusiastic dissertations, trying not to agree in the wrong place; trying, in short, to look as if I knew something about it all, yet not altogether succeeding, I fear, as I became aware when I caught the glance of Miss Sewin’s eyes, and the smile upon her sweet, half-averted face. Then the stars came out with a rush, and the jackals began to bay along the hillside in the gloom of the bush.

“Confound it!” grumbled the Major, looking upward. “It’s dark already; pitch dark, by Jove! and Glanton hasn’t seen half what I’ve been doing yet, since he was here last. You get no twilight at all in this infernal country. Well, I suppose we must go in.”

Nothing could be more pleasant and home-like than that cheerful, lighted room, as we sat at table. We talked about the country and surroundings, the life and its drawbacks, and the Major waxed reminiscent on byegone sport in India, and his anecdotes thereon interested me though I fear the others had heard them more than once before. Falkner was inclined to be extra friendly and had discarded his usual offhand and supercilious manner, which I own was wont to try my patience sorely, and questioned me repeatedly as to my projected trip into Zululand, to which I had incidentally referred. Afterwards the two girls played and sang – uncommonly well. Falkner too, sang a very good song or two, and altogether I found I was thoroughly enjoying myself, the said enjoyment being doubtless enhanced by an obtruding recollection of my lonely hut, away up the mountain, and evenings spent in my own company until such time as I should smoke myself to sleep.

“Mr Glanton, we would so much like to see your trading store,” said Edith, the youngest girl, when the music was ended.

I answered that there was little on earth to see there, that it was a greasy, dusty place, hardly fit for ladies, and so on, but that such as it was they would be more than welcome.

“And you will show us some Zulus for the occasion?” added her sister, with one of those glances which made me resolve to assemble half Tyingoza’s location if she set her heart upon it.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Only you mustn’t take me by surprise. It’s a rough and tumble place, and I might be taken just at the very moment when I couldn’t offer you a decent lunch.”

But they declared that this was just what they wanted – to take me by surprise, and see exactly how I lived, and so on. The while a desperate idea had come into my head, but, would it bear carrying out?

“Look here,” I said. “If you would really like to ride up there, it occurs to me I might show you something that would interest you – nothing to do with the store particularly. But I could collect a lot of Tyingoza’s people and scare up a regular native dance. They do it well, and it’s worth seeing, I can tell you.”

“Why that would be charming,” cried the youngest girl. “Aïda, we must go. Do you hear? Father, what do you think? Let’s all go, and make a day of it.”

“I was going to venture yet further, Major,” I said. “I was going to suggest that you make a night of it. There’s my hut – it’s very cool and comfortable – and I have a capital tent waggon. If the ladies could make shift with such by way of sleeping quarters, why we could turn in under a blanket in the store. It isn’t a luxurious bedroom, but I daresay, for one night, a couple of soldiers like yourselves could manage.”

“Rather,” cried Falkner enthusiastically. “That’s a ripping idea of yours, Glanton. What d’you think, uncle? Shall we fix up a day? No time like the present.”

“Well, I think the idea isn’t a bad one, if we are not putting you out, Glanton. But – what about the farm? We can’t leave it entirely to itself.”

This certainly was a difficulty. I thought for a moment; then I said:

“I might be able to straighten that for you, Major. I will send you down a man – a native, one of Tyingoza’s people, but as trustworthy as steel. You know, most of them are that way if put in a position of trust. Well you needn’t be afraid of anything going wrong – stocklifting and that – while he’s in charge. How’s that?”

“Capital!” went up from the girls.

“You seem to ‘straighten’ everything for us, Mr Glanton,” said the eldest, gratefully.

“Well this is a very small thing after all,” I protested. “I’m only afraid you will find the quarters a bit rough.”

But this they declared was nothing. It only remained to fix the day. They would enjoy it above all things, they repeated.

“You’ll have the same room as last time, Mr Glanton,” said Mrs Sewin, as she bade me good-night.

“Why, I was just thinking of going home,” I protested.

But this was over-ruled, and that unanimously. The Major wanted to have a talk with me, and couldn’t do it comfortably if I was in a hurry to be off all the time. Besides – what did it matter? Nobody would be wanting to do a deal during the night, so I might just as well remain where I was, and so on. Well, I didn’t want much pressing, and it was obvious my welcome hadn’t worn thin just yet.

“Let’s take the grog out on to the stoep, uncle,” said Falkner. “It’s cooler there.”

“What d’you think, Glanton?” said the Major, when we were comfortably seated outside, each with a glass of grog before him and a pipe of good Magaliesberg – than which there is no better tobacco in the world – in full blast. “Why is it I can’t do anything with these damned fellows of yours? Now in India I could make any sort of native do anything I wanted, and no bother about it. He had to, don’t you know.”

“Exactly, Major, he had to and these haven’t. Wherein lies all the difference.”

“I believe I was a damned fool to come and squat here at all,” he growled.

“I don’t agree with you, Major,” I said. “You’ve only got to try and understand them, and they’re all right. I don’t mean to say they’re perfect, no one is, but make the best of them. To begin with, learn the language.”

“Good Lord, I’m too old to begin learning languages.”

“Not a bit of it,” I said. “I knew a man once – he must have been about your age, Major, an old Indian, too, only he had been a civilian – who had gone stone blind late in life. But he had a hobby for languages, and I’m blest if he hadn’t taken up this one among others. He had got hold of the Bible in Zulu, done up by missionaries of course, and began putting all sorts of grammar cases to me. I own he fairly stumped me. I told him I didn’t know anything of Biblical Zulu – had always found that in use at the kraals good enough. Then he had the crow over me. But you ought to have a try at it, certainly your nephew ought.”

“By Jove, I believe I will,” growled Falkner. “Only it’d be an infernal grind.”

“Not much more grind than punching a boy’s head because he can’t understand you,” I said, “especially when the weather’s hot; and far more profitable. Still I can rather enter into your feelings. The feeling of helplessness when we can’t make out what the other fellow is talking about is prone to engender irritability. I was not guiltless myself in that line when I first went up-country. You set to work. Miss Sewin was saying this evening that she intended to.”

“Oh was she?” growled Falkner again, with renewed interest, and the glance he gave me was not at all friendly, I thought.

“Well, you take my tip, Major, and then I don’t think you’ll at all regret coming here. No, by Jove, I don’t.”

“You don’t, eh? Well I’m getting up a first-rate garden certainly. And the shooting around here isn’t bad of its kind.”

I hugged myself, metaphorically. Less than ever, by the experiences of a few hours, did I wish these people to give up in disgust.

Chapter Five.

A Disappearance and a Revel

“What is this about Nyakami?”

“U’ Nyakami? Is he dead?” answered Tyingoza, pausing with his snuff-spoon in mid air.

“That is what some would like to know,” I went on. “But they have not found him yet.”

I had named, by his native name, a neighbour of mine, who farmed some way down the river. Though in actual fact he was rather too far off to be termed exactly a neighbour. His real and British name was Hensley, and he had disappeared.

Sounds strange, doesn’t it, and it certainly was. People don’t disappear in Natal like they do in London, or any other large and civilised city, least of all highly respectable and fairly substantial colonists, of which Hensley was one. But this man had, and the strangest part of it was that he had not only disappeared but had done so leaving no trace. Not only that, but no one could be found who could swear to having been the last to see him.

He lived alone, and was an ordinary type of the frontier stock farmer. He was fairly prosperous and there was no reason on earth why he should have taken himself out of the way. No reason on earth was there either why he should have been put out of the way. He was on good terms with the natives, could always get plenty of servants, and so on. No, there was no reason in the world for his disappearance, yet he had disappeared – how and when nobody seemed to have the faintest idea.

The news had reached me through native sources, as a large portion of my news did. Indeed it is hardly credible the quantity I used to learn about my neighbours in this way; some of whom would have been mightily disconcerted could they have guessed that I, or anybody else, had an inkling of anything of the sort. The Natal Mounted Police had been investigating, but neither they nor their native detectives had been able to lay hand on the slightest clue. The man might have been caught up to heaven at midnight for all there was to show what had become of him.

“Not found him yet?” echoed Tyingoza, when he had absorbed his snuff. “Au! he will find himself. Men are strange, Iqalaqala, especially white men. And this one – if he wants to disappear why should he not?”

“Wants to disappear? But this one has no reason to want anything of the kind. Some men might, but this one not. You know him, Tyingoza, as well as I. What do you think?”

There was a comical twinkle in the chief’s eyes. He merely answered:

“Who can think in such a case?”

Obviously there was nothing to be got out of Tyingoza – as yet – so I left the subject. In fact I had a far more interesting subject on my mind just then, for this was the day the Sewins had fixed upon for their visit to me, and so I fell to discussing with the chief the arrangements which were to be made for their entertainment. He had promised that a goodly number of his people should muster, and I had promised them cattle to kill in proportion to the number that would require feasting. This ought to ensure a very good roll up indeed. The disappearance of Hensley was to me a very secondary matter to-day.